16/05/2017
Anticipating the Friday night, we asked our guest few questions about her lifetime projects, influences and inspiration:
1. Tell us about your project Kommuna and newly established label Kommuna Tapes. How did it all begin? Where is it all headed now?
We started the Kommuna project in the beginning of 2015. I had just moved back to Barcelona after some time traveling and living outside (in Germany, Romania and France), and coming back, the state of the scene was a bit disappointing for me at the time - most parties took place in only a handful clubs, and the range of different artists invited wasn’t particularly large. Together with my closest DJ friends in Barcelona (CMYK, Pekkuliar and Alex Mac-Lean) we soon realized that we had a similar vision of how we wanted to organize events. We wanted to offer something different, so we started looking for warehouses a bit outside of the center, or smaller privately run places that nobody had ever visited. We wanted to make our own bookings and invite smaller artists that were still under the radar for most people, and gather a nice crowd of followers who are happy to listen and dance to more challenging and interesting music, and go out in a way that they can connect and meet with the ones surrounding them! Over time, we have happily achieved our goal, and Kommuna events have been moving around the city quite a lot while becoming larger and more recognized slowly. Also the scene in Barcelona has come a long way since, with new clubs and alternative spaces opening and several promoters doing very interesting events. Our label emerged rather organically from the combination or organizing events and CMYK’s YouTube channel. Through his channel, he gets the chance to speak to many great artists on a weekly basis, and we kept meeting more and more people through our events - wanting to start our own label where we could release the music we found over time was only a logical step. It’s been an intense journey but I’m happy that both the label and the event series represent all shades of house and techno we like well as the kinds of events we want to attend ourselves!
2. What are your main influences?
In terms of contemporary DJs, my main influences are definitely Margaret Dygas and Vera, both of whom manage to create a unique and almost haunting atmosphere with their records, which lets you dive in deep and dance hypnotically. I have always admired their selection and how they manage to take you on a smooth yet surprising journey from beginning to end!
3. Which music inspires you the most?
In my free time, I like to listen to different styles of music ranging from jazz and world music to hiphop and downtempo. Regarding the electronic music spectrum, I started listening to the K&D Sessions by Kruder and Dorfmeister back in the early 2000s and have been crossing a variety of genres since. I love digging for old and forgotten music, such that it is hard to pin down a favorite producer or record label, they are literally spread all over the place! I guess if I have to name one all time favorite producer, it would be a guy called Schematix who produced no more than two records released in 1995 - I own several copies of both of them, and have been playing all of the tracks for a long time. They represent everything I love in my specific genre, range from breakbeat through trance and electro, and always end in a completely different way from what you would expect at the beginning. And spoiler alert, there is actually one track of him which has never been released on vinyl and which we managed to secure for an upcoming Kommuna Tapes release, I couldn’t be more excited! :) In general, I love tracks which have a surprising twist to them, and which cause you to stop doing whatever you are doing and just focus on listening - I am very happy whenever I get the chance to play in more relaxed contexts where the listening experience is the most important part. My favorite records are the ones which manage to silence a room - which is even more powerful than making people dance in my opinion!
4. What are your expectations before having your very first Asian gig?
I am actually really excited to experience the other side of the DJ booth in Asia! I’ve been living in Myanmar for two months now, where the electronic music scene is not very developed. EDM is still the main driver of many events in the scene, so it’s rather hard to find events with descent danceable electronic music. At the same time, there is a small countermovement starting to happen - I have a number of friends here organizing interesting events ranging from underground hiphop to psytrance. I’m very excited to discover another country in Southeast Asia and see how the crowd in Vietnam receives my rather peculiar favorite style of music and I’m hoping to meet some nice people on the way! Also, I’ll have my second gig in Asia very soon, I’ll be playing at a mini festival on a beautiful island in Myanmar organized by a good friend of mine and i’m very excited!
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